


everything is not what it seems

by dragonbagel



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Abduction, Amnesia, Angst, Domestic Violence, Hispanic Jack, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Recovery, lol yes there are aliens, mention of suicidal thoughts (i'll tag that chapter when it comes up), sort of self mutilation? idk nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonbagel/pseuds/dragonbagel
Summary: "You don't remember?" Jack chuckled, and Rhys shot him a look. "We were on Pandora looking for Eridian tech, and this giant ship came out of nowhere. Shit was straight out of Star Wars! They tried to capture us, I protected you like a hero, then they brought out a big-ass gun, blah blah blah, and here we are.""Oh." That didn't sound quite right to Rhys, but what did he know? He could barely remember what he'd eaten for breakfast, much less what had happened before being drugged and kidnapped. "So what do we do now?"Jack stared at Rhys like he'd just asked what number came after two. "We wait."---------------------rhys and jack are kidnapped while doing work on pandora by some weird aliens. real x-files type of shit. but at least they're together, right?rhys soon finds out just how very wrong he is.***currently on hiatus***





	1. it's gonna take some time to realize

Rhys groaned as the room around him slowly came into view, pale blues and oranges still harsh to his bleary eyes.    
  
"Where am I?" he asked groggily, rubbing at his sore jaw.    
  
"I think you mean 'where are  _ we _ ', right pumpkin?"   
  
"Jack?" Rhys asked, his relieved jerk of the head sending a jolt of pain down his spine. He tried to massage his neck with his left arm, but his movements felt sloppy and uncoordinated.    
  
"Take it easy, kiddo," Jack said, giving Rhys a sympathetic smile. He was laying awkwardly on the floor, his limbs randomly splayed out. Rhys was too, he now realized, the soft feeling of carpet slowly registered against his numb skin. "They knocked us out real good."   
  
"Who?" Rhys squinted, trying to make sense of the strange patterns he could now see swirling across the ceiling.    
  
"You don't remember?" Jack chuckled, and Rhys shot him a look. "We were on Pandora looking for Eridian tech, and this giant ship came out of nowhere. Shit was straight out of Star Wars! They tried to capture us, I protected you like a hero, then they brought out a big-ass gun, blah blah blah, and here we are."   
  
"Oh." That didn't sound quite right to Rhys, but what did he know? He could barely remember what he'd eaten for breakfast, much less what had happened before being drugged and kidnapped. Besides, an alien abduction (which, now that he thought about it, sounded way too lame for the gravity of the situation) wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to have happened to him. "So what do we do now?"   
  
Jack stared at Rhys like he'd just asked what number came after two. "We wait."   
  
"We wait?" Rhys repeated, dumbfounded. Jack had been kidnapped a horrifically anxiety-inducing amount of times, so surely he had some sort of tried-and-true escape plan that would get them out of there. "That's-- that's it?"   
  
Jack nodded. "Gotta figure out what they want. Plus," he said, grunting as he slowly pushed himself to stand. "They've got this whole sweet-ass setup going on here."   
  
Rhys to clumsily stumbled to his feet to his feet after him, finding that Jack was not wrong in any capacity.    
  
The room was fairly large, complete with a miniature kitchen, television, and small bathroom. It also had two beds, which made Rhys roll his eyes; were gay aliens not a thing?   
  
"I guess it is sort of like a free vacation," Rhys said, offering Jack a smile and a shrug. He wasn't about to go freak out and look like a wimp in front of his boyfriend (and hero).   
  
"Hope they've got the Spanish channel," Jack said, already moving to grab the remote. "I don't have time to catch up on my telenovelas again."   
  
Rhys laughed, reassuring himself yet again that things were going to be okay. Jack was here. Jack knew what to do. He might as well go along and enjoy himself.    
  
His legs still felt jelly-like, so he sank onto the bed closest to him (he didn't flop like a fish, nobody had proof he flopped like a fish). The blankets felt strange yet soft, and he let his eyes slide closed. He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until Jack called his name, gesturing excitedly to the television he’d managed to turn on.

“Look! They have ‘Tres Veces Ana’!” 

“That’s nice, Jack,” Rhys grumbled, rolling over onto his side. Rhys’ only Spanish knowledge was the colorful vocab he’d picked up from Jack’s dirty talk, and he had no shortage of requests to “please watch a normal English show on Netflix for once instead of Univision I’m begging you.”

“It is,” Jack agreed, plopping down onto the other tiny bed. His eyes were trained on the TV in front of him, but they’d flick over to Rhys every so often. 

Rhys didn’t know what to make of it. How the hell was Jack so calm about all this? He’d been nabbed a few times himself, but never kept in anywhere other than a rusty cage or disgusting bandit stronghold. This place was like a goddamn hotel suite, the kind with fancy room service and everything. The whole situation was putting him on edge, and he desperately wanted Jack to do something,  _ anything _ , to get them out of this mess.

But Rhys was afraid to interrupt the cries of  _ “¡mi hermana!”  _ and  _ “¡traidora!” _ , afraid to admit to Jack that he was scared and weak and all the other insecurities he kept bottled up and buried deep, deep within himself.

Instead, he opted for a distraction he knew Jack couldn’t refuse. “Is there any food in this place or what?”

Predictable as ever, Jack bounced off the bed and into the kitchen, opening and closing various cupboards in search of sustenance. “Holy shit, pumpkin! You’re never gonna believe this!”

Rhys sat up in excitement, limbs now more under his control as he looked happily at what was probably either ice cream or pizza or maybe even both. 

It was ramen.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Rhys groaned, recognizing the bright red packaging that had haunted his nightmares since college. 

“Isn’t it great?” Jack laughed, tossing the package to Rhys and hitting him in the chest.

Rhys glowered. The stupid noodles even had the audacity to be shrimp-flavored, which was a whole new level of disgusting. “No, it most definitely is not great.”

That only made Jack laugh harder, since watching Rhys suffer was one of his favorite pastimes. Seriously, that stupid look he got on his face when he tried to look intimidating was comedy gold.

Rhys really was hungry, however, so he finally relented and made the ramen (or, more specifically, made _Jack_ make the ramen). As he slurped down the cringe-worthy meal, he noticed Jack wasn’t eating anything. Which was weird, because Jack was _always_ eating something, even when he was in the middle of killing someone for spilling their coffee on him.  

“Aren’t you hungry?” Rhys asked around a mouthful of noodles.

Jack shook his head. “Nah, I ate before these assholes pulled an X-Files move on us.”

Rhys shrugged, although he didn’t really buy the excuse. Maybe Jack was more shaken up than he was letting on.

“Alright, well, you can go back to watching your stupid Spanish shows now. I’m going to sleep.” 

Jack rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself, old man.”

Rhys fell back into unconsciousness with the sound of a car crash echoing in his ears. 

Stupid fucking telenovelas.

* * *

Rhys awoke an indeterminate amount of time later in hopes that the whole ordeal with the ramen and the Spanish channel and, oh yeah, the fucking  _ aliens  _ had been nothing more than a freaky alcohol-induced nightmare. But when he saw the weird pastel color scheme and smooth, doorless walls, he knew this wasn’t over just yet.

He forced himself to sit up, finding Jack dozing in the other bed. He rolled his eyes, then started to boot up his ECHOeye; just because Jack didn’t want to be proactive didn’t mean Rhys couldn’t be. Of course, it was just his luck that the damn thing wasn’t working. He could turn it on, but a scrambled signal burst through his brain like the physical embodiment of loud static and he had to quickly shut it down. His cybernetic arm was just as useless. It still functioned as a regular arm, but none of its capabilities seemed to work beyond that. Which meant no hacking, no calling for help, and no new information. He was back to square one again. 

Investigating the room seemed like the next best idea, especially now that the drugs he’d been doped with had mostly worn off. He liked to watch old prison escape movies, okay? It wasn’t the worst hobby one could have (Exhibit A being either Jack’s Univision addiction or Vaughn’s illogical love of going to the gym).

The kitchen was stocked with nothing but ramen and some cans of Diet Pepsi, yet another abomination spitting in the face of god. Couldn’t they at least get some actual food? He’d even settle for a simple cup of coffee, as he could feel a caffeine headache settling in. Rummaging through the few drawers didn’t yield any nail files, scissors, or even spoons that could be used to orchestrate some sort of grand escape. 

Sighing and rubbing his temples, he moved on to check out the bathroom. It was literally just that: A toilet and matching sink that looked like they came out of a mid-20th century public school. There wasn’t even a shower; Rhys shuddered at what his hair was going to look like by just the second day. Was it already the second day? The overhead lights hadn’t dimmed since he’d first woken up, and without his ECHOeye or a wall clock to reference, any concept of time was thrown out the window alongside his regimented beauty routine. 

He couldn’t find anything else in the room aside from the beds (which were bolted to the floor) and the TV. He supposed the TV would at least keep him from dying from boredom, but he’d lose his mind if he had to watch trashy soap operas in a language he didn’t understand all day. He also didn’t know where the remote was, and he doubted Jack would actually tell him. That would definitely be an argument for later.

 Restless, he took to pacing around the small room, counting how many steps it took to go from one end to the other (25) and if he could touch the ceiling if he stood on the bed (the answer was yes). He watched Jack sleep for awhile, a behavior that he didn’t know whether to categorize as creepy or endearing. His mask was on, the synthetic skin slightly lighter than his naturally bronze body; it made him look peaceful, a look which rarely graced his features in consciousness.

It was calming, really, listening to Jack sleep. He was laying on his back, arms at his sides like a corpse, chest slowly rising as he breathed.

Rhys blinked, suddenly snapped out of his pleasant daze. There was a reason he didn’t watch Jack sleep: He snored like a freaking chainsaw, which was the very opposite of calming. 

Had the aliens put some sort of miracle in the drugs they’d used to snatch them? If that was the case, Rhys desperately wanted to get his hands on it, willing to pay virtually anything for a bottle so that he didn’t have to sleep with heavy duty earplugs every night. More desperately, however, Rhys wanted to know what the hell was going on. This wasn’t normal. None of it was normal. He needed to talk to Jack, to come up with a plan together. 

He gently shook Jack’s shoulder in an attempt to rouse him, the gray jacket the captors had forced both of them to wear feeling strange under his touch. Jack nudged his hand away as he opened his eyes with a groan, fixing Rhys with a tired look.

“I was sleeping,” he said flatly. 

“Yeah, uh, I know,” Rhys said, his tone nervous. “It was just, y’know, too quiet, and I, well, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Quiet?” Jack repeated, pointing towards the still-running TV.

Rhys shook his head. “You weren’t snoring, and it was weird, and this whole thing is freaking me out and--” 

“Alright, alright,” Jack said, holding up his hands in defeat. “Let’s talk, cupcake.” 

Rhys sighed in relief, sinking down to sit next to Jack on the bed. “What are we supposed to do?”

“We’re waiting,” Jack said. “I told you that before.”

“But why?” Rhys said with a frown. “Don’t you want to get out of here?”

“I told you, we’re _waiting_!” Jack hissed, glaring as Rhys flinched. “Can’t you just listen to me for once?”  

Rhys bit his lip, not wanting to dig his own grave after pissing off a clearly tired Jack.

“Come on, kitten. Let’s get some rest.” 

Rhys sighed and obliged, crawling back over to the other bed as his mind reeled. He was confused, and angry, and hungry, and yeah, he was also feeling pretty hurt. But he couldn’t vocalize any of it, not now. And he definitely couldn’t “get some rest” after what had just happened. So he simply watched Jack lay on his back, not really having moved from before, as he the other man slipped back to sleep.

This time, Jack began to snore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> tumblr: [dragonbagel](http://dragonbagel.tumblr.com)


	2. here i am, once again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys and Jack get in a fight, and Rhys realizes he may be losing his mind. Maybe. 
> 
> warning for domestic violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took so long to post this chapter! I've been having major writer's block with this story, but hopefully I can start regularly updating soon.

Rhys wasn’t sure how long they’d been trapped together before things started to snap.

It started with an argument over the television remote after Rhys had asked the very fair question of when it would be his turn to pick what they watched. He was sick and tired of those stupid telenovelas, the very sound of the over exaggerated dialogue grating against his ears. Jack had responded by telling Rhys to suck it up and quit acting like a baby.

“What the hell, Jack?”

Jack had looked up at Rhys from his spot on the bed with a cool, assessing glance, not even humoring him with an answer.

“It’s been fucking days, and I’m over here miserable and starving to death and all you can do is sit there and watch that stupid fucking show and pretend everything is fine!”

Rhys didn’t know what had come over him, what had finally pushed him over the edge, but he’d had enough of the bullshit. He was hungry, and bored, and restless, and wanting more than anything to be back home in his normal bed on Helios with a level-headed Jack.

“Calm down, would ya?” Jack said dismissively, as if he hadn’t heard an actual word Rhys had said.

“Calm down-- what the fuck, Jack? You need to fucking snap out of it!” Rhys yelled, his anger intensifying as Jack still seemed to be watching TV in the midst of their argument.

“Language, cupcake,” Jack admonished, annoyingly unfazed by the entire situation.

“Fuck you!” Rhys said, turning away and folding his arms over his chest. “Fuck you for sitting on your ass like a coward and doing jack-shit to help!”

Jack’s eyes snapped over to Rhys at that, and it was only a few seconds before Jack was on his feet stalking over to Rhys. “What did you just say to me, kitten?” he hissed, something fierce in his expression. “Because it sounded to me like _you_ , the little bitch baby that still cries in his sleep about his poor mommy, were calling _me_ scared.”

Rhys flinched at Jack’s words; what the hell kind of stunt was Jack trying to pull by saying that? He knew that Rhys was still sensitive about the fucking psycho _massacre_ that had killed his mother before his own eyes, just as he knew that it had taken a hefty amount of trust for him to relay that nightmarish tidbit about his life to Jack.

But he wasn’t about to back down.

“So what if I am?” Rhys said, channeling the majority of his effort into keeping his voice from wavering. “How many times have you watched that same fucking episode now?”

Jack growled at Rhys’ words. “Sorry you don’t understand _culture_ , cupcake,” he said, pronouncing the last word through gritted teeth and sitting back down. “Now leave me alone or you’ll regret it.”

The threat hung heavy in the still air, leaving Rhys frozen as Jack returned to his new favorite hobby of ignoring him. He felt like he was being suspended over a gulch, hanging by a thread that would break in half if he made one wrong move.

It was a good thing he was no longer scared of heights.

With a speed that came only with pure, impulsive recklessness, Rhys whipped around and smashed his cybernetic fist into the TV screen.

 _“¡Hijueputa!”_ Jack shouted as the image on the screen fuzzed in and out of focus. Large cracks had fractured the majority of the screen, turning shards of it into nothing more than tricolored static. His fists were clenched as he was on Rhys in seconds, slamming him onto the floor that felt way harder than it looked.

Rhys’ eyes widened in horror as Jack knelt on his chest, the pressure on his ribcage suffocating.

“J-Jack,” he rasped, the maniacal twist in Jack’s grin foreign to Rhys even with the multitude of bandit killings he’d witnessed. “Jack, stop.”

“No can do, kitten,” Jack said, his appearance almost devilish with his glistening red eyes. Red-- red eyes? Fuck, this must be what suffocating felt like, he was hallucinating, he was going to die, this was really it, this was the end, holy fuck-- “Now, time to learn lesson number one: _never_ question Handsome Jack.”

Rhys barely felt the impact of the fist against his face before the back of his head slammed into the ground and his vision went black.

* * *

Rhys woke up to an annoyingly familiar headache, the painful throbbing in his temples a sensation that he hoped wasn’t becoming too routine. Strangely soft sheets were scrunched between his fists, and he slowly unclenched them as he attempted to breathe.

“You awake there, princess?”

Rhys startled, having forgotten about the other presence in the room. And once he remembered he wasn’t alone, and remembered what had caused him to pass out in the first place, sleep was the last thing on his mind. He turned to look at Jack, who was staring at him with a quizzical gaze; waiting for Rhys to answer his question, he realized.

“Unfortunately,” he said bitterly, sitting up straighter and glaring at Jack.

“The hell crawled up your ass, pumpkin?” Jack asked, the casual tone with which he spoke grating on Rhys’ nerves.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rhys snapped, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe it was you _fucking punching me.”_

Jack frowned, his expression a strange combination of confusion and annoyance. “Excuse me?”

“You got mad at me for breaking the TV, and then-- then you…” Rhys trailed off as the muffled sound of overdramatized Spanish reached his ears.

Jack stared at him like he was crazy, and Rhys was beginning to feel like he might be.

_“¡No me llamas una mentirosa! La culpa es tuya y--”_

“Hello? Earth to Rhys?”

Rhys pulled his eyes away from the fictional argument taking place on the screen-- _the screen that wasn’t broken--_ to look at Jack almost guiltily.

“Sorry, I just…” Rhys didn’t even know how to transmit how he felt, how to begin to explain the complex tangle in his brain.

“It’s okay, kitten,” Jack said soothingly. “Must’ve had a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” Rhys said, sighing. “It just felt so real.”

“You know I’d never hurt you, Rhysie,” Jack said, his words causing some of the tightness in Rhys’ chest to dissipate. “Never.”

Rhys nodded, letting out a long exhale. “I know. I guess this place is just getting to me.”

“That’s why I told you to go sleep off the drugs,” Jack replied. “They mess with your head too much.”

“Drugs?” Rhys questioned, perplexed.

“Yeah, the ones the aliens tranq’d us with. We talked about this already, cupcake, try to keep up.”

Rhys furrowed his brow. “But that was days ago!”

Now it was Jack’s turn to look confused. “What?”

“We woke up on the ground, and you said we had no way out, and we just had to wait, and you watch that Spanish show nonstop, and there’s no food, and--”

“Whoa, slow down there, kiddo,” Jack interrupted. “You’re gonna blow a fuse up there.”

Rhys forced himself to breathe, to stop running his mouth and get some oxygen in his very confused and scattered brain. “So you’re-- you’re telling me none of that happened?”

“Well,” Jack started, looking at Rhys with the expression of a parent about to tell their child that their dog died. “You were right about us waking up here, and yeah, I took a look around here while you were snoozing, and it doesn’t look like we’re getting out anytime soon.”

_No, I was the one that looked around while you laid in fucking bed._

“Also, I just got this TV working. Pretty sweet, isn’t it?”

Jack was beaming at him, and Rhys forced himself to nod. There was no way this was happening-- was there? Had he finally cracked?

“Also, I found some food in the kitchen, looks like all they have is--”

“--ramen,” Rhys interrupted.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Damn, kitten, since when were you a psychic?”

_Since we’ve done all this before._

“I dunno. Guess I’m just having, uh, deja vu.”

“Remind me to set you up with our investing team when we get back,” Jack said, cracking a smile.

“Pfft, as if,” Rhys replied, shaking his head. “I’m more than happy to stick with programming, thank you very much.”

“Besides, I am kind of an expert in cybernetics.” He waved his metallic arm in emphasis.

Jack smiled. “There’s my Rhysie.”

His words sent a warm thrill through Rhys, and maybe even a few butterflies if he stooped down to the level of a lovestruck teenager. Although with all the ramen stocked up in the place, he may as well have been eighteen again. The thought made him smirk.

His stomach must have been listening to his internal dialogue, because it growled at that moment as if on cue.

“I’m gonna get something to eat,” he announced, pushing himself up to stand.

“‘Kay,” Jack replied before suddenly pointing his finger at the screen. “No way! No frickin way!”

Rhys turned around to look at him over his shoulder. “What?”

“Emilia and Roberto got back together! What the hell is this madness?!”

Rhys rolled his eyes. Same old Jack.

He turned back to the task at hand, opening the cupboard with the ramen that he thought he’d been chewing his way through for the past week.

 _Stop, no, don’t think about how we’re going freaking insane,_ he reminded his brain.

When he reached down to grab a hopefully chicken-flavored container of noodles, he found the supposedly full shelves to be half empty.

_“Díme la verdad. ¿Por qué no confías en mí? ¡Te amo!”_

Rhys let the cupboard door slide shut.


	3. a world unseen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rhys reflects on how he and jack met, and then gets up close and personal with...he doesn't really know what. what he does know is that he's getting sick and tired of this nonstop deja vu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've suddenly become super inspired about this fic so let's hope this lasts before i hit writer's block again
> 
> UPDATE: [THERE'S FANART](http://artsy-trex.tumblr.com/post/163097419174/inspired-by-dragonbagels-fic-everything-is-not)

The start of Rhys and Jack’s relationship wasn’t exactly what the general population would consider romantic. Rhys supposed there were probably people out there who thought having drunk sex with a stranger he met at a bar while trying to drink away the insane stress of the work week was up there with the boombox scene from _Say Anything_ , although he doubted his friends were among them. Which was why, to this day, his friends thought that he and Jack had met in a coffee shop like some hipster teenagers in a young adult novel.

It wasn’t a total lie; that coffee shop had been where Rhys and Jack first met each other while sober. He remembered Jack waking him up that morning with a gun in his face, shouting at him to identify himself. He’d never been shaken from a hangover so quickly. Once he’d reminded Jack that he was “the hot piece who’d been screaming his name all night” (Jack’s words, not his; although he was sure he’d done his fair share of shouting in bed), he’d relaxed and offered to take Rhys out for some coffee.

That sort of morning-after experience wasn’t one that Rhys was especially used to, considering he tended to bolt home to sleep out his hangover and avoid any rumors that may damage his rank-rising. This time though, he figured it would be okay. After all, his date was the CEO of the entire fucking company.

Rhys soon learned Jack wasn’t the ruthless dictator he appeared to be in his countless Hyperion propaganda videos (which Rhys had only seen for work-related purposes, of course), and he started falling hard for him. Maybe it was the way that Jack had shelves full of the same superhero comics that Rhys loved and gushed over, or the way he ordered top-shelf bottles of wine at restaurants yet drank cheap local beer at home, or how he secretly loved when Rhys was dominant in the bedroom. Rhys’ friends claimed he just had a sugar daddy, but Rhys was sure they had something more. And when Jack asked him to move in after a year of dating, Rhys felt more complete than he’d ever felt before.

But the Jack that he knew, the Jack that he loved despite the man’s multitude of annoying idiosyncrasies, was not the Jack reclining in the bed next to him.

Rhys had been watching Jack more closely after the whole “discovering physical proof that his boyfriend was lying to him about the length of their kidnapping” incident. He wasn’t totally sure what was going on, but it was obvious to him that something was up. Maybe Jack was the one losing his grip on reality; with all the stress the CEO was constantly under, he didn’t doubt it was a very real possibility.

“Hey, Jack?” Rhys said cautiously, fidgeting as Jack fixed his gaze on him.

“Yeah, cupcake?” He seemed to be in his usual non-work, non-murderous temperament, which Rhys took as a good sign.

“Are you, uh, are you feeling okay?”

Jack gave him an amused smirk. “For someone who’s been trapped in a tiny room by some creepy-ass aliens with no way out? I’m just peachy.”

The sarcasm was heavy in his voice, a familiarity that Rhys took comfort in. “Because, um-- because yesterday you were acting weird.”

“Was I?” Jack asked.

Rhys nodded, swallowing nervously. “You- you didn’t remember an entire week.”

Jack huffed. “What now?”

“You said we’d only been here a day, but, well.” Rhys anxiously rubbed at the back of his neck. “Half the food was gone, and unless you have some sort of nervous eating habit I don’t know about…”

He trailed off, letting his insinuation hang heavy in the air.

Jack’s face was expressionless, non-reacting. The impassivity set Rhys on edge, and he wished that Jack would say something, anything. He fidgeted with the hem of his stupid grey jacket, forcing himself not to avert his gaze.

“You’re hallucinating.” The words were void of emotion, and sounded almost monotone.

“What?” Rhys spluttered. “No way! I know what I saw.”

“You’re hallucinating, Rhys Montgomery,” Jack repeated. The way he said it made Rhys extremely uncomfortable, especially the way that he used Rhys’ full name.

“What the hell are you saying?” Rhys couldn’t decide if he wanted to yell or whisper, so he ended up just hissing out the words.

He froze when he felt something sharp prick the side of his neck, and whipped around to see Jack behind him holding a syringe. Hadn’t Jack just been sitting on the bed literally seconds ago? Maybe Rhys really was hallucinating. Maybe this was all just a nightmare; a really long, really realistic nightmare.

He pushed back against Jack’s arms as they encircled his body, but his body wasn’t responding the way he wanted it to. The way he needed it to. He was hoisted into a fireman’s carry, Jack holding him like a vice.

“Jack,” he tried to say, although all that came out was a sort of incoherent mumble. His tongue felt too large for his mouth, and was quickly going numb along with the rest of his limbs.

“Do not struggle, Rhys,” Jack said flatly.

Rhys couldn’t struggle at that point even if he wanted to (and he really, really wanted to). Was this another nightmare? He found himself unable to believe that lie, as much as he desired to.

His head lolled against Jack’s back, swaying as the man walked. The grey material of his jacket seemed like it was flickering in and out of existence, but then again, so did the rest of their surroundings. He couldn’t even make out the carpet any more, Jack’s feet soundlessly traversing what looked like colorless concrete.

He must have passed out at some point, because the next thing he knew, he was laying on some sort of table. His vision was still splotchy, but he recognized the setup; he was in a surgical room. He’d made a point to avoid hospitals since his cybernetic surgeries (Vaughn had to get him drunk and practically drag him to get a flu shot), and the unfamiliar darkness made it even worse. He couldn’t see Jack anywhere, and the only sound was a distant hum and chatter in a strange language he couldn’t understand.

He flinched when a figure appeared in his field of vision, which was limited due to his ECHOeye leaving him blind on one side. Their face (if it could even be called that) was pale and shrouded by a faint purple luminescence. A thin, overstretched neck arched to connect to a bug-like torso, the rest of its craggly body hidden from Rhys’ sight.

A spindly claw dragged across his face, not hard enough to draw blood but with enough pressure to hurt. Rhys tried to jerk away, but whatever drug Jack had injected him with (because that was the only explanation his cottony brain could come up with) kept him paralyzed. The creature’s appendage circled around Rhys’ neural port, the contact feeling even rougher due to the sensitive skin.

 _“Rhyssss,”_ it hissed, beady black eyes trained on him. _“It’ssss time to forget.”_

The claw slipped inside his port, flooding his body with an electric energy that felt like it was burning him alive, a white light flashing across his vision. He barely managed to scream before everything went black.

* * *

“Rhys? Rhys, wake up!”

Rhys slowly blinked his eyes open at the sound of Jack’s voice, yawning and stretching his arms above his head. He yelped as his hands slammed into a headboard, and flushed as he heard Jack laughing at him.

“What?” Rhys said, clearing his throat as his voice felt raspy.

“Shit, babe, I thought you were gonna sleep forever,” Jack said with a chuckle, nudging Rhys from where he sat on the edge of what Rhys realized was an unfamiliar bed.

“Shut up,” he mumbled, reaching to take Jack’s hand. “Where even are we?”

Jack snorted, holding Rhys’ hand in his. “I think we oughta cut you off after five drinks next time, cupcake.”

Rhys groaned, now realizing the source of his nausea-inducing headache. “God, how drunk was I?”

He could just make out the smirk spreading across Jack’s mask. He was surprised Jack was even wearing the mask, considering they were alone. But that was a concern for another, less hungover day.

“Drunk enough for me to have to carry you to this hotel.”

Rhys pressed his head against Jack’s thigh, sighing. He knew he wasn’t exactly a joy to be around when completely wasted, and he was thankful he didn’t remember all the embarrassing shit he no doubt did the night before.

“Sorry,” he said into Jack’s leg, the feeling of the fabric of his pants strangely cool yet comforting at the same time. “Had this weird dream too.”

“Don’t worry, Rhysie,” Jack said, threading the hand not holding Rhys’ through the other man’s hair. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Rhys wanted to believe him, wanted to fall back to sleep in Jack’s arms. But something felt… off. Sure, he had a headache; but it didn’t feel like a typical hangover. Then again, Rhys hadn’t been blackout drunk for years (he still couldn’t live down the time he’d spent three hours trying to hack a robot that turned out just to be a toaster).

“I’m gonna go shower,” he said, patting Jack’s thigh and pushing himself up onto all fours.

“Wait,” Jack said, his grip on Rhys’ hair tensing.

Rhys paused, frowning. “What?”

“I don’t want you to go.”

Rhys chuckled nervously, slowly untangling Jack’s hand from within his hair. The possessiveness was intense, even from Jack. “I probably reek, Jack.”

“Stay.”

It wasn’t a request, it was a command. One that made Rhys shiver. “I’ll be right back, don’t worry.”

He tried to keep his tone light, but Jack’s face had already morphed into a glare. He tugged in an attempt to free his hand from Jack’s, but Jack’s grip only tightened.

“Let me go,” he grunted, massaging his flesh fist with his cybernetic one after Jack finally released his grip on him.

He hunched under Jack’s stare as he headed towards the bathroom, the room’s layout oddly familiar. For some reason, there was no shower, which irked Rhys for reasons beyond just his vanity. Why hadn’t Jack just said that in the first place instead of being all creepy about it?

Rhys sighed, staring into the mirror before him. He looked a bit paler than usual, but other than that nothing was out of the ordinary. In an attempt to wake himself up more, he splashed some cold water on his face from the sink that thankfully did exist.

The freezing water did help Rhys to sober up, and Rhys went to wipe his face off with the back of his hand (stupid modern minimalist hotel had no towels either) before he went back to have a less exhausted conversation with Jack. He froze when he met his reflection in the mirror one more time. His ECHOeye was a dull black, and the skin near it and his neural port was bruised. His eyes traced the line of a still-red scratch across the length of his face, yet another injury he had no recollection of.

His fists clenched around the edge of the sink, as if he was trying to grip something nonexistent. The strange, suffocating sense of deja vu was maddening, and Rhys heard the sound of porcelain beginning to crack under the force of his cybernetic hand. He gradually eased the pressure on the material until his hands were hanging limply at his sides.

_This isn't happening this isn't happening this isn’t happening._

“This isn’t happening, Rhys.”

Rhys hadn’t noticed Jack appear in the bathroom with him, but he relaxed at his presence, especially as he echoed Rhys’ attempt to assuage his own fears. He leaned against Jack as the other man wrapped his arms around him, the action both startling and routine.

“Relax, kitten. This isn’t happening, everything’s okay.”

A part of Rhys wanted to protest, but then he remembered something in what felt like a eureka moment.

_Lesson number one: never question Handsome Jack._

Rhys leaned further into Jack’s embrace, ignoring the prickly feeling now tingling across his skin. He smiled. “I know it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> tumblr: [dragonbagel](http://dragonbagel.tumblr.com)


	4. curiouser and curiouser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rhys comes to some unpleasant realizations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took me 50 years. 
> 
> warning for (sort of) self-mutilation and violence. also, it seems sort of jumbled from where the previous chapter ended, which is because, as we learned before, rhys' memories are being wiped (he just doesn't know it yet).

_ “No es real. ¿Me entiendes? Todo lo que ves es nada más que un embuste.” _

Rhys groaned as he stared at the television with half-lidded eyes. Just when he’d finally started to fall asleep, Maria, the lady with quite possibly the most annoying voice ever, had started to shriek about-- well, Rhys honestly had no idea.

“What’s Maria saying now?” Rhys mumbled, turning his bleary gaze on Jack.

“She just caught her boyfriend cheating,” Jack said with a snort.

“Oh,” Rhys replied, returning to his effort to become at least somewhat well-rested. 

He didn’t have the motivation to do much of anything at this point, weighed down by a constant lethargy. In all honesty, he only tried to ask Jack for translations of whatever the hell telenovela he was watching in order to remind the other man of his presence. He knew it had only been a few days since he’d eaten anything of actual sustenance, but his stomach felt heavy with hunger. He couldn’t even bring himself to act on those biological urges for nutrition, as just the thought of the ramen he’d discovered when waking up in this hellish prison made him nauseous.

“You wouldn’t ever cheat on me, would you, Rhys?”

Rhys glanced up at Jack’s words. He hadn’t directly addressed him without Rhys prompting a conversation since before they’d gotten taken, which Rhys figured was due to Jack being just as shaken up by all of this as he was. His boyfriend was antsy when stuck in an office triple the size of this room, and he was surprised Jack hadn’t taken to bashing at the wall with his fist already.

“Rhys?”

“What?” Rhys rolled over onto his side to see Jack staring at him.

“You wouldn’t cheat on me like he did, would you?”

Rhys furrowed his brow. Jack was asking this now of all times? 

“Of course not,” he said, eyes flickering to the argument still taking place onscreen. “You know I’d never.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, quirking his lips thoughtfully. “I might, though.”

Rhys choked on his spit. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, dumbass,” Jack said with a scowl, his entire demeanor shifting.

“No,” Rhys replied, pushing himself up to stand on shaky legs. “I really don’t think I did.”

Rhys meant it to sound threatening, yet he couldn’t deny it also had the semblance of a question to it. Maybe he was starting to lose it in here, just like it seemed Jack was.

Jack bared his teeth in a disgusting grin. “Everyone wants a piece of me. What makes you think I’m not willing to share myself with someone better than you?”

Each word hit Rhys like a punch in the gut. He may not have been willing to engage in some of Jack’s more...dangerous kinks, but Jack had never seemed perturbed by it. In fact, he always had a slew of compliments about Rhys’ bedroom skills. So what was he missing? What had he done wrong?

“We’re dating,” Rhys said lamely, unable to find any other words.

“Not if you keep acting like such a brat,” Jack threatened.

Rhys met his glare, refusing to give in despite how badly he wanted to curl up in the corner and sleep until this whole mess was over. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How much do I have to dumb it down for ya?” Jack asked, imposing as ever despite his slightly shorter height. “You. Aren’t. Worth. My. Time.”

Tears welled in Rhys’ eyes as he bit his lip, determined not to let Jack see how he’d gotten to him. The lack of food certainly wasn’t helping his emotional stability.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he muttered, brushing past Jack with his gaze averted. He stumbled forward when a hand shoved at his shoulder blade, vision clouding as he took in the heart-wrenching sight of Jack laughing at his emotionality.

He tried to make as little noise as possible as he closed the door to the bathroom, afraid of what might happen if he attracted Jack’s attention again. But now that he was alone...well, there was nothing stopping the tears from streaming down his face. He looked like complete shit, the bags under his eyes dark and his skin splotchy. The crying definitely wasn’t helping his appearance, and he bit his lip even harder as he watched the droplets slide over the protrusions of his cheekbones in the mirror. God, did he always look so sickly? Maybe Jack had a reason for not wanting him.

No, no; it was just this place, that was all. It was playing tricks on him. It was impossible for him to have seemingly lost ten pounds in what, two days? Just as it was impossible for Jack to say that bullshit about him. Because Jack loved him. He’d told him that! He wouldn’t lie to Rhys, or cheat on him, or talk shit about him. It was just this place, just this place.  _ Don’t think about all the girls he ogles and the late nights at the office and the way you dump all your shit on him and how weak he thinks you are and-- _

Rhys bit down lightly on his left knuckle to keep from audibly sobbing, although the action knocked the breath out of him as he was jolted with a flash of pain. He removed his hand from his mouth, lips parting slightly as he stared at the appendage in confusion. The skin was covered in scrapes, scabs, and scratches, some of which looked oddly fresh. His fingernails were also bloodied, worn down to dried scarlet stumps and frayed nerves. When the fuck had that happened? He wracked his brain, but for the life of him couldn’t remember getting into a fistfight. Maybe he’d tried to defend himself from those creepy alien dudes before they were captured and just hadn’t noticed.

He trashed that theory as soon as he saw the etchings clawed into the metal of his cybernetic arm. The silver was speckled with red blood--  _ Rhys’  _ blood, he realized-- and the yellow coating had been rubbed off in various areas. Carefully, Rhys turned the faucet on, his flesh hand shaking as he rinsed the grime off of his other arm underneath the water. He patted the surface down carefully with a towel, as if any sudden movement could rob him of whatever he was about to discover.

_ Not real. _

That was what the message on his arm read. The letters were scraggly, but Rhys recognized the handwriting as his own (and the bloody mess of his fingernails sealed the deal). His mind was reeling as he tried to process it, attempting to search for any semblance of a memory of whatever the fuck had prompted him to carve up his arm. Granted, he couldn’t feel pain in his cybernetics-- but the mess of his flesh hand had most certainly hurt.

Shit, was he losing his grip? Could he really not distinguish between what was real and what was just some sort of delusion?  _ Fuck. _

He let his left hand rest beneath the stream water, hissing as the chilly liquid slid overtop his broken skin. He watched the diluted redness drain off his body, a sharp contrast to the chaste white porcelain. Everything felt fuzzy around the edges, exhaustion layered upon hunger and piled atop the tightness in his gut that  _ maybe none of this was real. _

Splashing water on his face did nothing to rouse him from this nightmare, only soaking the upper part of his ugly grey shirt and- and exposing a smattering of bruises and scratches on his face. He blinked, overcome with a sense of deja vu that throbbed throughout his entire being. Gingerly, he traced his flesh finger around his neural port, which was in even worse shape than the rest of his features.

_ “Rhyssss. It’ssss time to forget.” _

The words echoed through his mind, the voice foreign yet oddly familiar. He tried to dismiss it as another hallucination, because the alternative of it being real was infinitely more terrifying.

_ “Rhys. Es hora de olvidarse.” _

Okay, no. He definitely knew the voice this time: it was Maria, the lady from the soap opera. The words, spoken infuriatingly shrilly as ever, struck a cord inside Rhys. That was his name, his fucking  _ name. _

“Rhys.”

He spun around as his name was repeated, as this time the word came from directly behind him. It still had an oddly staticky quality, yet there was a clear physical presence behind the sound. Then he saw Jack, standing at his back. He flinched, not having noticed Jack enter. Or open the door. Or show up in the mirror.

He bit his lip as he looked Jack up and down, trying to pick out any hint of an abnormality. But where should he even begin? If he looked out of sorts, it wasn’t like Jack could be expected to be in mint condition. He swallowed thickly.

There was no other choice. He had to ask.

“Jack,” he said, grimacing at the way his voice cracked. “Are you- are you real?”

He felt his hands shake as he waited for Jack’s reply, praying to any deity that would listen that Jack would laugh and call him a loser, tease him for being such a scaredy cat and call him one of those pet names that he secretly loved.

Jack didn’t respond, unblinking eyes staring at Rhys. Suddenly, it was as if his entire body glitched, the physical presence disappearing until only a blue, holographic ghost of Jack was visible, streams of cyan code flashing across him. Then he was gone, leaving Rhys to wonder if he’d even been there in the first place.

That was before he felt the pressure of two hands around his windpipe. He gasped as Jack’s angry face appeared in front of him like a vengeful spirit, yet once again realistic as ever. The pressure was relentless, and Rhys clawed uselessly at Jack’s hands. It was a hopeless fight, especially as his fingers began to sink uselessly  _ through _ Jack, that same blueish glow appearing like twisted mechanical veins.

“Rhys,” Jack said, his voice rough in Rhys’ ear.

Rhys had stopped struggling, the futile effort only depleting his limited oxygen supply further, so it was easy for Jack to lift Rhys up and over his shoulder. The clamping on his throat was released with the change in position, but Rhys was too weak to do anything other than suck in greedy lungfuls of air as he was carried out of the room. The room with no doors and windows, no exit  _ except a portal surrounded by metal cameras and wires and blinking red lights and-- _ he scrunched his eyes closed at the onslaught of unfamiliar images flooding his brain. They felt like memories, but not his own. Like he was looking through photos in his childhood ViewMaster, photos of places he was sure he’d been yet never seen at that particular angle.

The deja vu was deafening as the rest of the monochrome compound came into view. Rhys shivered; he knew where they were taking him. What they were taking  _ from  _ him.

“Please,” he tried to say, but his tongue refused to comply.

He saw it now, over and over and over again. Coming so close just to have it all taken from him. That was why he’d left himself that message, it had to be. But was there really anything he could do about it? Maybe it was better not to remember, better to just take the blue pill. At least in ignorance he didn’t feel so damn  _ helpless. _

“Rhys.” Jack repeated his name one last time as he lowered Rhys’ weak, trembling form onto the operating table. “It’s time to forget.”

Then he flickered away completely, leaving Rhys to wait for that torturous spark to run rampant through his brain and turn the memories of the past few days into mush.

_ Please,  _ he begged, as if his brain was somehow a separate entity outside the grasp of his captors.  _ Please, please don’t make me forget again. _

A tear slipped down his cheek as he realized that this probably wasn’t the first time he’d asked this of himself, and likely wouldn’t be the last. Terror seized in his chest as he heard the disgusting chattering of the aliens no doubt surrounding him, opting to keep his eyes closed rather than see what flashes of memory showed to be hellish, insect-like creatures.

_ “Come on, kitten. Let’s get some rest.” _

Rhys succumbed to unconsciousness at the pressure on his scalp and with Jack’s voice in his ears. At least like this he could delude himself into believing that those words had been genuine, that the Jack trapped with him was real.

At least like this he didn’t have to feel so completely alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna try to update this more frequently i swear


	5. una y otra vez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i don't know how to summarize this it's literally just angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "una y otra vez" means "time and time again"
> 
> warnings for domestic violence/abusive relationships, unreality

Waking up got harder and harder each time. Rhys had long lost any semblance of time, unsure of whether his imprisonment had lasted days, weeks, months, years. He didn’t know what terrified him more: having been trapped for such an extended period without rescue, or having lost his mind in such a short span. The bones that stuck out inexplicably further each time he saw his reflection suggested the former, and he made a point to avoid his reflection as soon as he remembered the reality of his situation.

That was the worst part: each time he returned to his senses, he was back to square one. Sometimes it only took minutes for him to notice the words on his arm (which thankfully hadn’t been removed), for the memories to come flooding back in a torrential mental tsunami. But other times… other times it took much longer. Other times he allowed himself to be fooled, trusted Jack and remained sated. Eventually he wondered if these instances were even involuntary, because sometimes it was just easier to pretend.

Why should he stress about variables like escape and survival when they’d just remain out of his control? Why shouldn’t he just accept the lie and allow himself that tiny piece of comfort?

“We’re going to get out of here, Rhysie,” Jack would say, and Rhys would nod. He’d nestle into Jack’s embrace and convince himself this love and affection was real. He’d tell Jack that he loved him, and the warmth that spread through his body at Jack’s returning of the sentiment-- how could that be fake?

Deep down, he knew that he was only deluding himself. There were always tiny cracks, little bits of Jack’s personality that hadn’t been mimicked perfectly. Funnily enough, these minute mistakes were sometimes easier to spot than the gaping behavioral disparities. Of course Rhys knew that Jack always said “son of a taint” rather than “son of a bitch.” But did he know that Jack always talked sweetly to him? That Jack never threatened him? He wasn’t quite sure.

All he knew was that he wanted to go home, and he wasn’t sure if that was a place that even existed anymore. So he killed time. He talked to Jack about his parents, willing to endure the verbal berating in the off-chance of Jack actually providing some comfort. And then he’d roll onto his side and see that stupid message on his arm and it would come back, all of it, even though it hadn’t really disappeared in the first place

_ Not real. _

Sometimes he found the strength to mechanically force himself to eat. There was no way he’d be stable enough to fight back, both mentally and physically, without some sustenance. Then, after letting the half-cooked noodles scald his throat, he’d throw himself into his escape plan. He’d seen  _ Shawshank Redemption _ enough times to know that there was always a way out, and a small part of him already knew the escape route from that hellish room. Yet that piece of knowledge had been wiped from his mind, too low on the list of important memories to even resurface along with the bare minimum:

He’d been taken by aliens. They made him forget. And Jack? He wasn’t real.

_ Not real.  _

Rhys thought he knew what that had meant, that he’d been referring to the artificial apparition of his boyfriend. But now… what if Jack wasn’t the only thing that didn’t exist? What about the rest of his surroundings? The pastel walls, the Spanish channel, the ramen-- what if it was all some sort of hallucination?

Rhys’ flesh hand began to twitch as he looked around the room, the entire area silent save for the low murmuring coming from the television. Jack wasn’t there (if Rhys’ observational skills were still trustworthy), and it left Rhys with a strange mixture of relief and loneliness. He  _ liked _ being around Jack, even this Jack, because it got him out of his head for a bit  _ (unless all of this is in his head and none of it’s real and…) _

The time bomb of nerves ticking in his chest exploded, and he shot to his feet as the panic overcame him. He swung his left fist into the wall beside him, the pain shooting through his knuckle the only grounding he’d felt in god knew how long. Except… there were other dents in the wall near his fist. Meaning he’d done this before.

Meaning he’d forgotten again.

“Fuck,” he groaned, letting his head fall into his shaking hands. It always hurt when the memories came back, especially those that were more complex. Like a migraine on steroids.

_ “Let me out of here!” he screamed, banging his fist as he looked around wildly at what were surely dozens of hidden cameras. _

_ “Don’t damage the drywall, cupcake.” Fingers threaded through his hair, dragging him backwards as he kicked uselessly.  _

_ “Get off!” he shouted, trying to elbow force behind him. “And don’t call me that! I know you’re not him!” _

_ He received no response, only hands around him, carrying him out into darkness, static through his brain before he was back again, the record stuck on repeat. _

_ “You should be grateful,” Jack hissed as Rhys begged for him to leave him alone. “You don’t deserve my attention." _

_ Again that pressure on his chest, his throat, his mind. And then he was back, same as always, pleading in vain for a relief he should’ve learned didn’t exist. _

Rhys let out a shaky breath, trying to get his breathing under control. He knew he was crying, but he was too far past the point of self-consciousness to even care; this certainly wasn’t the most vulnerable those freaks had seen him acting, that was for sure. He hated that he craved Jack in that moment, craved his strength and grounding. But he wasn’t real. Rhys had to keep reminding himself of that, he had to. There was no other way out: he had to stand up to Jack.

It was probably a stupid plan, and it was probably going to get him killed. Although, if he was being honest, that was probably preferable to whatever the fuck was happening to him now.

_ “Todo termina aquí. No te puedes escapar.” _

Rhys stood unsteadily at the sound of the television; if he was going to die, he wasn’t going to do it with Maria’s annoying voice in his ears. He had a strange feeling of deja vu as his cybernetic fist broke through the glass of the screen, although it was overpowered by satisfaction at the way both the monitor and volume fuzzed away into nothingness. He felt oddly powerful, like he could take on the world (or, more specifically, take on Jack).

But then he saw the man. Then he saw Jack, and his resolve crumbled.

He fell to the floor with wide eyes, staring up at the figure now looming above him. He wasn’t sure what they’d done to reprogram him, but he looked...different. Maybe it was the way they’d replaced his weird matching prison jumpsuit with his typical multi-layered battle uniform. Maybe it was the way his hands were coated in a blood that Rhys couldn’t remember the source of (meaning it was probably his). Maybe it was the way he had the audacity to look concerned, his green and blue eyes widened in feigned shock at the destruction caused by his own hands.

“Rhys.”

He flinched at the sound of his name, biting his lip and trying to draw on the strength he’d found what felt like centuries ago. 

“S-stop! I thought I t-told you to g-go away.” His voice was weak, and Jack only stepped closer. 

“Rhysie, it’s me,” he said. “I’m here to take you home.”

The words made Rhys want to melt, to nod and agree and give in. But he forced himself to stare at the words he’d carved into his cybernetic arm.  _ Not real not real not real. _ He didn’t notice he’d been saying the phrase aloud until Jack questioned it, the same way Jack always did. They didn’t want Rhys to know the truth, they never did; and now that Rhys remembered, they were trying to break him down all over again.

He closed his eyes, then slowly opened them again so that his gaze met Jack’s. He tried to channel all of his anger, his hatred, his fear, into his next word. He wanted these motherfuckers to know that he wasn’t just going to lay down and take it. They could change their stupid code as much they wanted, but Rhys wasn’t having it.

So screw it if his voice wavered, or if it made his heart want to curl up and die in his throat.

One deep breath. In, out. He looked at Jack again.

“No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this doesn't feel rushed, i kinda flew through it and tried not to make it too repetitive  
> also i'm trying to deal with rly bad anxiety rn so yeah that's sorta why this is the way that it is


	6. fuck you (and your bird)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flashback chapter! jack and friends (well, not really friends) try to find rhys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally something in jack's pov!  
> i've been trying to write other things i'm working on but keep coming back to this fic so here we are

_Three months earlier:_

To say that Jack was furious would be an understatement. His hands were clenched into fists as he paced the length of his office, shoulders rigid and eyes so narrowed that Elpis was nothing more than an unfocused glow outside the window. His fingers twitched overtop the pistol holstered to his thigh as he heard the door open, and even though he’d summoned the visitor, he was itching for a kill.

“Did you really call me all the way up here just to kill me, Jackie?”

Jack sighed and lowered his hand, turning to face Nisha. The lawbringer had her hand on her hip, the stance both playful and terrifying.

“No,” he grumbled, his anger starting to fizzle into exhaustion.

He’d been awake for nearly three days, running on nothing but coffee, anger, and energy drinks (the dark bags under his eyes that were thankfully hidden behind his mask attested to it). The office showed similar signs of wear and tear: bullet-riddled claptraps lined the hall, crumpled cans of Monster littered the floor, and there were shards of glass scattered across the room. The source of the glass was a shattered picture frame, the edges of which had been mangled by the bottom of Jack’s boot after he’d thrown it onto the ground. Nisha could see a now-warped photo of Jack and Rhys in the wreckage, and Jack growled as he noticed where her gaze was trained.

“I’m not paying you to stare,” he snapped, kicking the debris into the corner with much more force than necessary.

“Then what are you paying me for?” Nisha asked, pursing her lips at Jack’s outburst. “And how much? You never did say.”

Jack’s scowl deepened, wondering once again why he thought calling up his ex was a good idea. “How much will it cost for you to shut up?”

Nisha paused, placing her chin between splayed fingers as if in deep thought. “I’m thinking at least five figures. Six if you want any other...benefits.”

Her lip curled deviously at the last word, but Jack didn’t even react to her innuendo.

“Fine,” he said, turning away from Nisha and stepping back around so that he was behind his desk. “I’ll give you 50 grand once we’re done.”

“Ah ah,” Nisha replied, wagging her finger and approaching Jack. “I’m gonna need 20 in advance.”

Jack just continued to glare.

“I do have some jobs lined up on Pandora that would pay much better…”

“Alright!” Jack snapped, slamming his fist on the desk. “Would you shut the fuck up now?”

He scrawled his signature onto a check and tossed it in Nisha’s direction, not even bothering to see if she caught it. The lawbringer just rolled her eyes and slid the money into her pocket.

“So what’s all this about anyways?” Nisha asked, snarkiness placated by the soon-to-be weight of cash in her wallet.

“It’s Rhys,” Jack said, not meeting Nisha’s gaze. “He’s gone.”

Nisha frowned. “Sorry, Jackie. But to be fair, we both knew he was way too vanilla for you and--”

“Not like that, asshole!” Jack interrupted angrily. “Someone took him.”

“You mean like...kidnapped him?” she questioned, her demeanor beginning to soften.

Jack nodded, running his hands through his hair. The normally gelled style was in complete disarray, a testament to his constant stress.

“He was down on Pandora looking for old Eridian shit. It was supposed to only be for a few days, but then he stopped returning my calls, and his ECHO is completely off the grid, and he still isn’t back, and--”

“Jack,” Nisha said harshly, cutting off Jack’s rambling. “Where on Pandora was he?”

“The fucking Trash Coast. Thought since there was part of a Vault Key there he’d be able to find something.” He dragged his hand down his face with a sigh. “And before you ask, we bombed the shit of the place before he got there. No bandits or spiderants for miles.”

Nisha paused before speaking. “So you want me to track him down?”

Jack looked annoyed by the prospect, but eventually nodded. “You know the planet better than I do.”

“Can’t argue with that,” she said, readjusting her cowboy hat. “Mind if I bring some backup?”

Jack shrugged as he attempted to recompose his appearance. “I don’t care what you do as long as you get him back.”

“Will do, partner,” Nisha said, giving Jack a reassuring look. “Will do.”

* * *

Nisha called in quite a bit of reinforcements during her quest, but as the length of Rhys’ disappearance grew, Jack found he didn’t give a shit about how much it cost him. He just wanted his boyfriend back.

He spent most nights with his fist curled around a glass of whiskey, gaze alternating between the whatever shitty telenovela was playing on TV and the phone in his lap. He kept waiting for Rhys to call him, to apologize for scaring him and awkwardly chuckle about whatever mishap he’d gotten himself into. But his message notifications remained frustratingly empty, and on those rare occasions that he actually managed to get some sleep, it was to the shadow of his text conversation with Rhys glowing on the inside of his eyelids. He’d sent Rhys more messages than he could count in the hopes that at least one would deliver, but every single one bounced.

It was this constant, stressful lack of response that caused Jack to nearly jump out of his skin when his phone finally _did_ start to ring.

“Hello?” he said, almost dropping his phone as he fumbled to answer the call.

“Hey.” The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Nisha, and while his chest deflated a bit at the fact that it wasn’t Rhys, he was still a bit hopeful. “We’ve got a lead.”

Jack sat up straighter, his grip on his comm crushing. “Where should I meet you?”

“Slow down there, partner,” Nisha chuckled. “We haven’t actually found him yet.”

Jack ignored her statement in favor of demanding her location.

Nisha just sighed, knowing there was no winning an argument with him at this point. “Fyrestone.”

Jack frowned; that town had been deserted for years. “You sure?”

“You didn’t hire me for nothing,” Nisha huffed in response.

“Okay,” Jack said, standing and sliding on his shoes. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

He hung up before Nisha could tell him it was an awful idea.

* * *

Jack had forgotten how hot Pandora was. His various layers of clothing had never before been an issue when hunting Vaults on Elpis, but he could already feel a slimey drip of sweat creeping down his back. He used his left hand to shield his eyes from the sun, his right clutching a pistol (one could never be too cautious).

He quietly approached Nisha, who was standing in the town’s makeshift cemetery amidst a pile of bandit corpses. She was engrossed in conversation with a thin, scrappy-looking man with a ridiculous bandana whom Jack recognized as Mordecai. The hunter was no better than the bandits, in Jack’s opinion, but he supposed Mordecai did have some serious tracking skills. Plus, there was no telling what freaky scouting abilities that weird bird always perched on his shoulder possessed.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing their attention. “You said you had a lead?”

Mordecai did _not_ look happy to see him, but that was fine in Jack’s book-- he’d have all the time in the world to bicker with the Vault Hunter once they’d rescued Rhys.

“Yeah,” Nisha said, elbowing Mordecai when he didn’t immediately speak (he was the tracker, after all).

Mordecai sighed before turning to Jack. “Look at these bandits.”

Jack looked down at the ground before raising his gaze back up to meet Mordecai’s. “They’re dead, so what?”

“That’s not what I meant, _pendejo,”_ Mordecai replied.

Jack glared; surely the hunter knew he also spoke the language? “Alright then, _princesa;_ what am I missing?”

Mordecai sighed. “Here.”

He held out an ECHO device to Jack, who waited for Nisha to nod before he took it (he didn’t trust this guy not to blow him up). The screen was open to an aerial photograph of what appeared to be the very cemetery they were standing in. Bandits were scattered across the entire area, all dead and weirdly arranged at awkward angles. A glance up from the device to the actual surroundings showed them to not even be remotely identical, although Jack supposed there were a lot of hungry skags (and psychos) in the area.

He squinted as he enlarged the image, finally registering the strange, curvy design. “Are those fucking crop circles?”

Nisha chuckled at his disbelief, but Mordecai remained unamused.

“I put a camera onto Bloodwing and sent her out to track down Rhys’ scent. This, well-- this was what she found.”

“Excuse me?” Jack snapped, Mordecai’s nonchalance as he stroked the bird on his shoulder only fueling his annoyance. “Rhys’ _scent?”_

“Relax, Jackie,” Nisha said, putting a hand on his shoulder which he quickly shrugged off. “I just gave them a pair of Rhys’ socks.”

Jack spluttered, folding his arms and not even bothering to ask how the hell Nisha had gotten into his apartment (the woman had her ways). “So then what the hell does all this mean?”

Mordecai shrugged. “Beats me. We’re gonna have to bring this over to Tannis, see what she knows.”

Jack gagged at the mention of Tannis’ name; god, he hated that bitch so much. She was annoying as hell, and acted like some sort of mystical guru simply because she’d read a textbook on the Eridians once.

“Wait,” Jack said suddenly. “You don’t think this was the Eridians, do you?”

Mordecai shook his head, his gaze on Jack patronizing. “They’re all dead, _idiota._ It’s probably just someone mimicking them.”

 _“Escucha, hijueputa, te juro que arrancaría cada graso pelo de tu cabeza si me llamas un apodo estúpido_ una vez más _y--”_

“Jack.” Nisha gave Jack a pointed glare. “Shut the fuck up.”

Jack swore under his breath and obliged, maneuvering his body language to make it obvious to Mordecai that he wasn’t fucking amused.

“We’re gonna go talk to Tannis, we’ll call you when we’re done. And you should go get some rest, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

Jack was sure he looked like shit, because yeah, he really hadn’t slept in weeks. He grumbled a goodbye (to Nisha, at least) and turned to head back to the Fast Travel station in the center of town.

Once back on Helios and in his apartment, he felt his exhaustion hit him. He stripped out of his sweaty clothes and crawled into bed, too tired to even shower. He slid his phone out of his pocket to check for the millionth time that day that Rhys hadn’t left him any messages, then plugged the comm in to charge. He closed his eyes, willing his body to actually get some rest. When he finally slipped into unconsciousness, he was dragged into a horrific dream of loneliness and death, Rhys’ death, his lover’s face covered in blood as Jack could only watch him die over and over again, his body frozen in place. He was screaming for Rhys to come back, to come _home,_ to let Jack take care of him. And when his eyes shot open and he found himself back in his own bed, it was to the actual sound of him screaming.

It was too bad that the nightmare didn’t end when he woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm emotionally attached to bloodwing so ofc she's here, same with mordecai


	7. x marks the spot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jack's rescue mission continues and, eventually, succeeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i've lost control of my life. also fuck tannis

Jack had been right about Tannis: she really was the most frustrating know-it-all in the entire freaking universe. Her self-righteousness managed to be even more infuriating than that one Claptrap unit that’d gotten ahold of an encyclopedia and proclaimed itself the Ultimate Master of Knowledge, because at least Jack could shoot a robot without having his morality questioned. As it was he’d nearly whipped out his pistol at various points in their conversation, and the fact that he was back on Helios and only video-calling in on the soiree was a testament to his irritation.

Apart from her grating, self-satisfied recital of completely irrelevant (and probably inaccurate) information that had even Mordecai seconds from pulling his dagger on her, Tannis did manage to provide some information of substance.

She explained that the writing was in the language of the Eridians, which she, being a worldly scholar, of course was able to understand. At Nisha’s insistence to “just fucking spit it out already,” Tannis translated the markings into English, glaring sourly at the lawbringer the entire time.

“New human subject. 1800, 4960, 1912,” she said proudly, flourishing her finger at the end. “They must be communicating with others of their kind.”

Jack swallowed thickly. He knew that the message was referring to Rhys, and him being referred to as a “subject” made his skin crawl. Just what were they doing to him?

“The numbers refer to a set of coordinates,” Tannis explained, her form flickering in Jack’s video feed as she pulled an ancient-looking textbook off of a shelf. She dropped the book onto the table in front of her, the cloud of dust sending Mordecai into a coughing fit.

She licked her thumb before flipping through the pages, Mordecai glaring as he rubbed at his allergy-reddened eyes. “Here!” she announced, smoothing a finger over the page she’d opened. “Now, if we connect the dots here and plug them into an algorithm...oh, does anyone have a calculator?”

Nisha groaned and snatched the book, holding it up to the camera so that Jack could get a clear snapshot of it. “Hey!” Tannis protested, although a murderous glare from Nisha shut her up.

“Got anything?” Nisha asked, watching as Jack hurriedly typed away on his computer.

“One sec,” he said, finishing his particularly colorful death threat to his programmers and smirking at the practically immediate response.

He sent the results to Nisha with a smirk, flipping off Tannis as she glowered at him. _Welcome to the this century, bitch._ Nisha’s phone projected the same holographic screen that Jack now had displayed in his office, an orange pinpoint flashing in the atmosphere above Eden-5.

 _There._ Jack sighed, staring at the blinking symbol. That’s where Rhys was. That’s where he needed to go to rescue him, and rescue him he would.

“Let’s go!” he ordered, body beginning to twitch with nervous energy. Mordecai and Nisha nodded, already packing up their stuff because they didn’t want to spend a second longer with Tannis than they needed to.

“Alright, thanks for everything, blah blah blah,” he said, rolling his eyes as Tannis had the audacity to look annoyed at him. “Go back to torturing Vault Hunters with pointless side missions, would ya?”

With that, he ended the call, dropping his phone onto the desk and kicking at the side to launch his rolling chair across the office. He skidded to a stop outside his weapons chest, opening it to reveal his favorite goodies. The orange and pink hues of the guns, the majority of which were legendary, glowed before him, and rather than taking the time to carefully sort through which guns had the best specs, he grabbed as many weapons as he could fit in the various holsters attached to his clothes. He then shoved the rest into a bag, because who knew if he may need both an incendiary and a corrosive sniper rifle when he was kicking alien ass? He even brought a laser gun for good measure.

He shot off a text to Nisha (he was honestly done dealing with Mordecai) with directions to meet him at Helios’ launch bay ASAP, to which she sent back a thumbs up followed by the cowboy emoji.

He ran his hands through his hair as he sighed, his gaze landing on the shattered picture frame that was still lying on the ground. He walked over to crouch next to it, carefully shaking off the glass so that he could inspect the photo without injuring himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he stared at the picture, trailing a thumb over Rhys’ face. He then pulled his hand back with a hiss, because his glass-cleaning skills must’ve been sub-par. He sucked on the finger to dull the pain, the taste of copper strong in his mouth.

Sighing once again, he pushed himself up to stand before dialing Tim’s number and ordering his body double to take his place indefinitely, starting right this second or risk an oxygenless trip into deep space.

Okay. He could do this. He could find Rhys and save him. He was the hero, dammit! Yet he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that accompanied the words “too little, too late” rattling around in his exhausted brain.

When he found Nisha standing next to the shuttle he’d arranged, he promptly ushered her inside and initiated a launch sequence. His hands were shaking with a cocktail of rage, anxiety, and adrenalin, and he was grateful Nisha had the tact not to point it out.

He gunned it to the coordinates they’d found at a speed that definitely wasn’t safe, clenching the steering mechanism all the while. Upon seeing the outline of the spaceship where they were holding Rhys, he accelerated even further until Nisha shouted at him to slow the hell down so that they could dock. Jack just glowered at her.

“You ready?” she asked as they parked the shuttle and checked over their arms and ammo.

“Do you even need to ask?” Jack replied in a way with which he intended to convey that yes, he was definitely ready.

Even Nisha knew that was a lie, but she kept her lips zipped as they entered the strange looking ship. The backlit corridors were empty, but Jack had the creeping feeling that they were being watched. He’d called reinforcements to meet them there in case of a fight (one could never had too many expendables), but Jack was too restless to wait. He stalked through the halls, looking for any sign of Rhys.

Instead, he was met with the sight of the ugliest fucking creature he’d ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on.

“The hell is that?” Nisha asked, already pointing a gun in its direction.

The alien (Jack supposed he had to call it that despite how lame it sounded in his head) looked like someone had stretched out a beetle and given it the face of Satan, a mouth with all teeth and beady, unblinking eyes staring down the weapon pointed at it.

“Where’s Rhys?” Jack asked, pulling out his own gun for added intimidation.

The creature cocked its head to the side, letting out of series of chattering clicking noises rather than answering the question.

“I _said,”_ Jack growled, firing a round into what he supposed was the alien’s foot. “Where the fuck is Rhys?”

It hissed, staring at its injured foot before looking back to Jack. A pool of blackish blood was pooling on the floor, and Jack found it both nauseating and extremely satisfying.

 _“Thisss way,”_ it said finally, limping down the corridor. Nisha smirked at the easy compliance, but Jack couldn’t take his eyes off of the bloody trail now staining his shoes. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it seemed to remind him of the reality of the situation (which he desperately wanted to ignore). Because in the end, it had taken him three months to find Rhys.

But that was three months too long.

Because when Jack finally, _finally_ knocked down the door to the room where Rhys was being held, ordering Nisha to stand guard next to their new nightmarish pal, he almost didn’t recognize the man that he saw. Rhys was pale, his skin nearly translucent and his eyes wide as he huddled against the wall in the far side of the room. His frame, which was thin to begin with, looked boney, and his eyes were sunk in above protruding cheekbones. The knuckles on his flesh hand were bloody, but he didn’t appear to have any other outward injuries-- at least, none that Jack could see.

“Rhys,” he said softly, taking a step towards him. Rhys looked terrified, and it was taking every ounce of restraint for Jack to not run and scoop him into his arms.

Rhys’ eyes widened at the sound of his name, his ECHOeye dark and dead. “S-stop! I thought I t-told you to g-go away.”

“Rhysie, it’s me,” Jack said as he crouched so that he could be at eye-level with him. “I’m here to take you home.”

Jack’s heart twisted as Rhys’ face contorted in pain.

“No,” Rhys choked out.

Jack watched as suddenly Rhys’ fist connected with the wall, the thud dampened yet powerful nonetheless. His eyes kept flickering between Jack, the inner side of his cybernetic arm, and the wall, which Jack quickly registered was already littered with dents.

“Rhys, stop!” Jack said, starting to move towards him. “Babe, you’re hurting yourself!”

“Don’t call me that!” Rhys snapped, tears leaking down his face. “I told you, don’t f-fucking call me that.”

His voice was cracking, body trembling as Jack wrapped his arms around him and tug him up to his feet. Rhys screamed, thrashing in an attempt to get away from him. But Jack’s grip didn’t relent, instead hoisting Rhys over his shoulder to carry him out of the room.

Rhys was clawing at his back with bloodied, misshapen fingernails, his voice hoarse from yelling. “Please, please not again. P-please. I don’t- don’t wanna forget again.”

Jack’s mind was reeling, overwhelmed with a desire to help Rhys yet also having no clue what was going on. He’d ordered his men to find as much information about the ship and whatever little “experiment” they’d had going on with Rhys (not to mention bringing their new “friend” back for some...intensive questioning), but for the moment he was blind.

He tightened his hold as Rhys futilely struggled to escape, sobbing all the while.

“P-put me down!” he said, the order anything but assertive.

“No can do, cupcake,” Jack replied as he slid an SMG out of his thigh holster. He looked to Nisha, whose gun was still trained on the alien. Rhys cried out at the sight of it. “We need to get him back to Helios  _now.”_

Nisha’s hardened facade faltered at the sight of Rhys, but she quickly nodded, digging the barrel of her pistol into the creature’s back. “Lead the way, Jackie.”


	8. who needs a hero?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jack takes rhys back to helios. warning for some medical stuff/hospitals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title based off my boy timothy's dialogue

Rhys passed out before they’d even boarded the shuttle. He’d struggled a bit longer once Jack had carried him out of his room (or, more accurately, his cell), but at the sight of the garish alien outside being restrained by Nisha, he’d fallen into unconsciousness with little more than a pained sigh. Jack was honestly glad that the nauseatingly skinny man was no longer pleading with him or attempting to scratch up his back like some wild animal, although he swore he could still hear Rhys’ voice hoarse in his ear.

“Come on!” he barked, not even bothering to wait for Nisha-- not even _she_ would try to cross him in a state like this.

Hyperion soldiers darted past him as they flooded the station under Jack’s orders to “find out what the fuck’s going on and kill those sons of taints,” combat boots echoing as they scurried across the metal floor. A few had given sideways glances towards Jack and Rhys, but the murderous look on Jack’s face had them all but falling over themselves in an attempt to put space between themselves and their bloodthirsty overlord.

Jack-- well, Jack felt strange. On one hand, he recognized that hazy red headspace he was inhabiting, the literal mental “killzone” that his anger threw him into. But on the other... It was as if there was something dragging him down, a quicksand pulling harder on his trousers with each step. Rhys’ bony frame felt like an anchor weighing on him, though in some capacity he still knew that he could easily use his boyfriend like a barbell and not even break a sweat. So then why was his shirt sticking to his back, adhering to his skin via the perspiration dripping from his hairline down to his tailbone? Why was his entire body shaking worse than it had with the exertion of running endlessly around Elpis searching for vaults?

The tremors wracking his body didn’t abate even after he set Rhys’ limp body down onto one of the shuttle’s seats, his hands trembling so badly that Nisha had to swat him away and secure Rhys’ safety harness on her own. Jack didn’t speak, for once at a loss for words. He couldn’t draw his gaze away from the way Rhys’ head lolled limply against his shoulder, the way that the hideous gray jumpsuit he wore hung like oversized drapes off his frame. He gently cupped Rhys’ face with his hand, half convinced this was nothing but a hallucination and that his hand would phase through into empty air. But physical skin, although uncannily cold, met his touch, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Things would be okay. Jack would make sure of that. Once he figured out what the fuck had happened, the medical staff would whip Rhys back into tip-top shape (if they valued keeping all their limbs attached), and things could go back to normal. They had to.

“Stay with me, Rhysie,” he whispered, shakily stroking Rhys’ hair back from his forehead.

He could feel Nisha’s concerned gaze trained on him as the ship roared to life, although he didn’t meet her eyes. He couldn’t deal with any pity or half-assed apologies meant to sound sympathetic (which just so happened to be Nisha’s forte). The lawbringer, luckily, could tell that Jack was about two seconds from losing his cool and getting them all killed in the process, so she kept her lips pressed tightly together as she navigated them back to Helios. It was only when the engines died down and the docking light flashed green that she finally spoke.

“Jackie,” she said, trying to somewhat keep the usual harshness out of her voice. “We’re back.”

Jack’s head snapped up at the sound of his name, the arm that he’d looped around Rhys’ shoulder tightening. “Did you call medical?”

Nisha nodded, opting for less words considering Jack seemed to be vibrating out of his skin in pure fear and anger-- and she was _not_ about to be the one to set him off.

They both turned to watch as the hatch to the ship began to emit a series of clicks before finally unscrewing and swinging open to reveal one of Helios’ loading bays. A team of emergency workers poured in, somehow managing to gracefully tout a stretcher into the small space. Jack hovered as they slowly maneuvered Rhys onto it, fingers twitching overtop the gun holstered to his thigh. His impulsive triggerfinger nearly won out when one member of the medical squad accidentally touched a little too close to Rhys’ ass while lifting him, although Nisha managed to prevent that bloody disaster by putting a firm hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“Come on,” she said, pulling her friend back towards her so that he was no longer breathing down anyone’s neck. “Let them do their jobs.”

Jack clearly wanted to argue, especially with how his fingernails were practically drawing blood with how tightly his fists were clenched. He managed to keep his cool enough to put some distance between himself and the medical team, although he by no means was about to let them out of his sight.

Rhys looked fucking dead, his pale hand hanging over the side of the stretcher. Jack knew his emotions were clouding his judgment, but if anything happened to Rhys, if he’d somehow sustained less visible injuries...well, Jack had no qualms about beating this alien fucker to death.

Speaking of.

“What’d you do with our guest?” Jack asked, lip curling in disgust as he practically spat the last word.

“Had some soldiers lock it up in R & D,” Nisha replied, glancing over at Jack as she struggled to keep up.

“Perfect,” Jack said, his mind already wandering to the wonderful methods of torture he was about to inflict-- after he made sure Rhys was okay, of course.

Jack returned to hovering once they arrived at the medical station, snapping at the staff when they tried to force him to sit in the waiting room.

“Not happening, princess,” he said, looming over the nurse who was blocking his entrance to the actual ward.

The man was clutching his clipboard as if it would somehow shield him from Jack’s fury, and Jack watched with pure, angry satisfaction at the way the nurse’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“R-right,” he stammered, finally realizing that he had no choice in the matter if he valued his life. “Rhys is in the room at the end of the hall.”

Jack grinned, his smile all teeth and most definitely still threatening. “Thanks, cupcake. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

The nurse opted to keep his mouth shut, a smart move on his part. He stepped to the side so that Jack could pass, the other man already heading down the hall at a pace that rivaled even the most talented of mall walkers.

The doctor looked surprised when he yanked the door open, although she had enough common sense not to say anything. She turned back to the task of setting up an IV for Rhys, who was still unconscious. His cybernetic arm had been removed, the socket bruised like he hadn’t removed the appendage in months. Jack supposed he probably hadn’t.

Rhys’ face was also covered in bruises, the majority of which surrounded his neural port. His eyes remained closed, his chapped lips hanging slightly apart as he breathed.

“What happened?” Jack finally asked, folding his arms over his chest lest he let his anxiety show. “Is he okay?”

The doctor glanced up, studying Jack’s expression in a manner best described as clinical. She’d finished affixing the bag of fluids to the needle in Rhys’ arm, and had moved onto the task of disinfecting his bloodied hand.

“He’s severely dehydrated,” she said, gesturing to the IV in explanation. “Probably malnourished too.”

Jack nodded, tapping his foot impatiently. “But he’ll be fine, right?”

The doctor began to wrap a bandage around his flesh hand, her attention focused as she spoke. “The physical injuries appear to be minor, but we won’t know about the state of his cybernetics until he wakes up.”

“And that’ll be soon?” Jack said, his question tinted with the unspoken threat of what he’d do if the statement wasn’t true.

The woman sighed, brushing her hands off on her lab coat as she stood. “Rhys’ body has suffered severe trauma. He needs rest and nutrients.”

Jack frowned as he processed her response. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“The human body is incredibly self-preserving,” she said, unflinching under Jack’s gaze. “Give him time to heal.”

That still didn’t provide the answer Jack was looking for, but it didn’t seem like the doctor was going to provide anything else.

“Let me know when he wakes up,” he said, turning on his heel.

He assumed the doctor had nodded, as she seemed smart enough to know what was good for her. He didn’t have time to look back, though.

He had a prisoner to attend to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i'm (surprisingly) not dead! i can't promise anything about regular updates (life is insane) but i swear i'm not giving up on this story!


	9. this ugly-ass alien

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jack becomes better acquainted with his prisoner. violence ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just sacrificed 3 hours of sleep to write this so i really hope yall enjoy.

Jack had seen a lot of nasty creatures over the years, but this alien douchewad had to take the freaking cake. He honestly pitied his quarantined observation cell for having to hold such a hideous being, the small puddle of slime pooling on the tiled floor in what appeared to Jack like a messed up version of sweat causing bile to rise in his throat.

He hated this thing. He hated it with every fiber of his damn being. He didn’t even know what it’d done, but he still knew deep in his gut that it deserved to be punished. The speckles of red marring the sterile whiteness, likely from a losing battle with Nisha’s whip, weren’t nearly enough to satisfy the bloodlust burning through Jack’s veins.

“Hey, you!” Jack yelled, slamming a fist on the bulletproof glass.

Three sets of beady, dark grey eyes flicked onto his face, narrowing as if assessing him. The creature said something in response that wasn’t in any language Jack recognized, and he had a feeling it wasn’t anything too kind.

“I know you speak English, dipshit, so don’t even try that crap.”

The alien still didn’t move from where it was hunched in the corner, its deformed-looking body twisted up in the most awkward of ways.

“ _Yess_ ,” it replied after a moment, its tone about as far from friendly as it could get.

“Good,” Jack said, his voice equally (if not more) malicious. “Now tell me, what the fuck did you do to Rhys?”

When he didn’t receive an immediate response, Jack triggered the small turret in the room meant to kill any subjects that got out of line. However, he’d replaced the ammunition with elemental shock rounds, bullets meant to hurt like hell without the blissful endgame of death.

The creature shrieked as a bullet hit, spilling droplets of blood onto the ground from the wound on its arm. The electricity sparking all over its body had it convulsing, an image which caused Jack immense satisfaction.

“Jeez, you’re ugly,” Jack tutted, more to himself than anything. “Now answer my question.”

“ _The sssubject wasss for research._ ”

Jack scowled. “The hell does that mean?”

“ _We encountered the sssubject in our territory,_ ” it said, eyes never leaving Jack. “ _We needed to collect data on your kind._ ”

“My kind?” Jack repeated.

“ _You possessss sssuch emotional vulnerabilitiesss._ ” Each “S” came out like an extended hiss, and it annoyed the hell out of Jack.

“So he was just your fucking lab rat? Huh? Is that it?”

“ _The sssubject helped usss undersstand,_ ” it said, as if that wasn’t a complete repetition of its previous answer.

“Understand what, asshole?”

“ _You exhibit sssuch aggressssion, Jack,_ ” it replied, tone unbelievably cold.

“How the hell do you know my name?” Jack snarled, slamming his fist on the glass in annoyance.

“ _The sssubject’sss implantsss provided the information we needed for our ssstudiess. We have been waiting for one like it._ ”

Jack fired another electric bullet, anger peaking at the disgustingly nonchalant words. The way that the alien writhed was satisfying, but still not enough.

When the electricity finally abated, the alien spoke again.

“ _Your relationssshipsss are ssstrange,_ ” it said, voice still infuriatingly neutral. “ _Our trialsss showed sssuch easssy manipulation._ ”

“Trials?” Jack snapped.

“ _The data we compiled helped uss underssstand,_ ” it replied, as if it hadn’t already said that.

Jack was about to hurtle an insult about the creature being uglier than the freaking Creature from the fucking Black Lagoon when he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He slid out his pistol as he whipped around, the barrel of the gun pointing directly at the terrified face of one of his own employees.

“H-handsome Jack, sir,” he stammered, arms slightly raised in surrender.

Jack rolled his eyes as he lowered his weapon, the other man’s shoulders slumping in relief. “What do you want?”

“We’ve retrieved surveillance footage from the ship, sir,” he said, the formality with which he spoke drawing Jack’s attention to the standard army uniform which he wore.

“Give it here,” Jack replied, holding his hand out impatiently.

A video device was placed in his palm, and a screen immediately projected into the air above it. His other fist clenched at his side as the video began to play, spotting Rhys pacing in the small room where Jack had found him what seemed like ages ago. He could hear the faint sound of a television in the background, although he tuned it out in favor of the conversation taking place on screen.

“ _Leave me alone, Jack._ ” The sound of pain in Rhys’ recorded voice physically hurt Jack, and he swallowed tightly.

His heart nearly froze in his chest as a holographic version of none other than himself materialized on the screen. “ _No can do, cupcake._ ”

That was his voice, his fucking voice.

“ _I know you’re not him,_ ” Rhys said, not even bothering to look at the hologram.

“ _You don’t know shit, pumpkin,_ ” the recorded Jack hissed, stalking over towards Rhys.

The other man flinched back, appearing to look at himself in disgust towards his reaction.

“ _You’ve always been so fucking stupid,_ ” the fake Jack continued, arm glitching out of existence before all too solidly landing on Rhys’ shoulder.

“ _Is that all you’ve got?_ ” Rhys asked, words hollow. “ _This is starting to get boring._ ”

“ _You ungrateful brat,_ ” Jack replied, forcibly spinning Rhys around to face him.

“ _Haven’t heard that one before,_ ” Rhys said sarcastically, although the real Jack could see the way he was trembling.

The holographic Jack didn’t move for a moment until suddenly grabbing Rhys and flinging him over his shoulder.

“ _W-wait!_ ” Rhys said, all notions of false bravado lost. “ _Wait, I’m sorry!_ ”

“ _You’re going to be,_ ” Jack growled.

Rhys began to whimper as a hand threaded itself through his hair and pulled, trying futilely to dislodge himself from Jack’s grip. The entire scene made the actual Jack nauseous, and he fast-forwarded through the clip until the next video started to play. Rhys was back in the room again, this time curled up in bed.

“ _Jack?_ ” he said groggily.

The fake Jack turned to him, a small smile on his face. “ _Hey babe._ ”

“ _What’s going on?_ ” Rhys asked. “ _Where the hell are we?_ ”

Jack frowned as he stared at the footage. What the fuck was going on? Why didn’t Rhys remember anything? He remembered what his captive had said about “trials”, and his features morphed into a glare.

They’d been wiping Rhys’ fucking memory.

He angrily scrubbed through the video, watching the figures move at an impossibly fast speed. The innocent confusion on Rhys’ face made Jack clench his teeth and force the video to fly by faster, eventually pressing play again when the timestamp in the corner showed it to be a week later. This time, “Jack” was nowhere to be seen,  
and Rhys was backed into a corner.

“ _Stop it,_ ” Rhys muttered to himself, neck twitching. “ _Stop it, stop it, I know, I know you’re not real, not real, I know it._ ”

He sounded deranged, and the way he was practically clawing at the walls only added to the image.

“ _Wrong,_ ” came Jack’s voice, the man suddenly materializing.

Rhys inhaled sharply, feet scraping at the floor as he tried to put more distance between them. It was to no avail, as he was already wedged against the wall, and tears welled in his eyes as “Jack” stalked closer.

“ _I’m as real as you are, sweetheart._ ”

The smarmy voice had Rhys jolting in fear, and he started to slam his fist against the wall in the same way Jack had witnessed upon rescuing him.

“ _Not real, not real, not real,_ ” Rhys repeated, scrunching his eyes shut as tears began to slide down his cheeks.

The backhand that struck him across the face appeared all too concrete, and Rhys cried out.

“ _Get over yourself,_ ” Jack snapped, pulling Rhys to his feet by his hair. “ _You sound fucking insane, you know that?_ ”

Rhys didn’t respond, eyes still tightly closed.

“ _How could I love someone who’s crazy? Huh?_ ” Jack slammed Rhys’ head against the wall, the cracking sound nearly causing the real Jack to puke. “ _You want me to love you, don’t you?_ ”

Rhys shakily nodded.

“ _Then pull it together, Rhysie._ ” His tone had morphed into something suddenly kind, his grip releasing and hand instead moving to gently caress Rhys’ face. “ _I need you with me, babe._ ”

Rhys nodded slowly, leaning into the touch. “ _Okay._ ”

He seemed subdued, all previous anger and fear forgotten. “ _I’m sorry._ ”

The pain and sincerity with which he said those words pushed Jack to the breaking point, and he thrust the device into the soldier’s hands to avoid crushing it in his rage. He then stalked over to the locked door to what was functioning as a holding cell, his biometric signature unlocking the entrance with a series of clicks.

He fired the first shot before he even fully entered the room, his bullet hitting the creature in the leg. Blood began to flow from the wound, but it was barely satisfying.

“You sick fuck!” he roared, aiming his next shot at what he assumed to be the thing’s knee. Either way, the scream it let out was all too pleasant in Jack’s ears.

“I’m going to kill you, you hear me?” he hissed as he stepped closer. “Just like I killed the rest of you all, you fucking wastes of space.”

Another bullet went clear through the alien’s lower abdomen, causing it to shriek. But it wasn’t enough, it still wasn’t enough.

“You’re going to die here, all alone, pathetic.” He pulled the trigger with each breath, reveling in the blood spattering the walls. “You’re going to pay for what you did.”

He vaguely registered that the creature had stopped twitching at the onslaught of pain, body limp as it became riddled with bullets. Another through its brain, through its merciless heart, over and over and over again. He continued to click through the now empty chamber, ears ringing as he attempted to continue firing.

Not enough, never enough.

He was panting, his own clothes coated in the collateral damage. He slowly released his grip on the pistol, gun clattering onto the ground. His gaze flicked over the still bleeding form of his former captive, strange looking organs visible through the abundance of holes in its abdomen.

He hadn’t even noticed the cluster of scientists huddled at the observation window, all watching the carnage with paling faces. Jack passed them as he exited the room.

“Go nuts,” he said, voice deadened as he gestured to the corpse.

The scientists smartly waited until Jack had completely vacated the premises before starting to assess what organs hadn’t been damaged, because Jack was itching for another kill. He unconsciously made a beeline for the fast travel station, already trying to determine which bandit settlement he most wanted to kill his way through.

However, just as he was checking to make sure he had his favorite rocket launcher for maximum damage, a voice piped up from beside him.

“Handsome Jack, sir.”

Jack whirled around, entirely unopposed to popping a cap into one of his own employees.

Then the woman opened her mouth again, and Jack’s entire body froze.

“Rhys is awake.”


	10. wide awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jack and rhys reunite in the angstiest way possible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this while half asleep on a plane so it very well could make no sense. i figured it’s better than nothing tho. (this is my way of apologizing for not having motivation)
> 
> warning for hospitals, needles, unreality

The world around Rhys seemed to enter his senses through a haze. Glimmering light flickered atop his slightly cracked eyelids, sharp antiseptic scents dimly pricking his nostrils as if through gauze. Everything was too bright, too white, too out of focus, and Rhys tentatively lifted his left hand to assess what he conjectured to be his mummified face. True to his assumption, bandages covered his neural port, and as he felt around it with his craggly fingernails, a dull itchiness ignited beneath the skin.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Rhys jolted at the voice coming from the figure seated at the computer tucked into the corner of the room, fingers freezing from where they’d started to scratch at his temple. He’d been so disoriented that he hadn’t even noticed the other presence, and instinctively raised both hands up in front of his face for protection. Except...except his cybernetic arm was gone. His rotator cuff shifted uselessly, the robotic latches protruding from his shoulder whirring in futility.

He felt his blood run cold. How long did he have before he forgot again?

Shit. Sure, he still remembered what was going on— but without the constant reminder on his arm, how long would that last? His eyes quickly scanned the room, narrowing in on the slightly ajar door. All he had to do was run, and then maybe he’d be free from this neverending hell. He could go home, he could see his friends, he could—

“Rhys, I’m going to need you to calm down.”

Rhys flinched back as the lab coat-clad woman approached him. Although she didn’t appear disgustingly alien-like, he knew better than to believe her to be real. To believe any of this to be real.

“Let me out of here,” he said, voice trembling despite his attempt to sound commanding.

The doctor frowned, but didn’t comply. “You’re not well. We can’t discharge you until your condition has stabilized.”

Rhys stared at her incredulously. “Not well? Of course I’m not fucking well, you psycho. Now let me go!”

The woman didn’t respond immediately, her eyes flicking over him, assessing. Rhys couldn’t take it, couldn’t deal with the way he was constantly treated as nothing more than a specimen. And so, when his pleas for release weren’t immediately met, he did the only logical thing and ripped out his IV with his teeth. His single hand, now dotted with blood, flagged in his weakened state as he made to tear the heart-monitoring wires off of his chest, but he grit his teeth and continued to pull.

The monitor at his bedside beeped as it flatlined.

Now freed from his medical confines, Rhys pushed himself up to stand, stumbling past the doctor on numbed out legs as she pressed the call button for emergency assistance. He nearly collapsed as he gripped at the doorknob, leaning on the door heavily as he forced it open and staggered forward towards freedom.

He didn’t remember this corridor, all fluorescent lights and stark white walls. Then again, he didn’t remember a lot of things. Maybe this was always where they took him after they wiped his mind to make sure that he wasn’t too broken to manipulate. Or maybe this was some new experiment, like the next level in some sickening video game in which he had the misfortune of being the protagonist.

He heard footsteps behind him, and he jerked his head around to see a team of scrubbed up nurses approaching. They called at him to stop, but that only made him go faster. He could practically hear the inhuman hissing in their voices, and dully wondered if his captors were just getting lazy. Then he realized he didn’t care, because he really just needed to get the hell out of there.

The building was like a maze, leaving Rhys with the ever-present bile stuck in his throat at the thought of being a lab rat. A test subject. A good-for-nothing waste of space.

He gulped as the last internal snark came in Jack’s voice.

“Sir, please stop!” One “nurse” tailing him said. “Don’t make us sedate you.”

The threat only spurred Rhys to move quicker, and he wished for the upteempth time that his ECHOeye was functional so that he could scan for the route to the escape shuttles. He knew they had to be here somewhere. Right? Oh god, what if aliens didn’t have to follow space vessel regulations? Maybe he was on the cosmic equivalent of the Titanic, a ship wholly unprepared for the notion of evacuation. If that was the case, he hoped he could at least find a way to crash the damn thing into an ice planet. A sick sense of poetic justice or something like that.

No, he was too young to die. Young and attractive and smart and successful. Heroes don’t die, kiddo. That’s what Jack had always said.

Rhys pursed his lips, suddenly much more on board with the whole idea of a tragic hero’s death if only to spite that sadistic asshole.

It was just his luck that he bumped into said asshole as he rounded the corner.

* * *

Jack hummed to himself as he returned to the medical wing. Satisfying his bloodlust never failed to put him in a good mood, and it served as the optimal distraction from his anxiety about Rhys that he’d deny to his grave. Clearly there had been some sort of twisted mind game going on, if the snippets of video he’d seen were any indication. But _why_? That was the part he still couldn’t figure out. They’d said they were “studying” Rhys, but did anyone seriously enjoy science so much that they’d torture someone over it? Unlikely, in Jack’s bonafide (although admittedly research-repulsed) opinion.

“Handsome Jack, sir!”

Jack spun around at the sound of his name, right hand instinctively hovering over the pistol strapped to his thigh. He relaxed his fighting stance upon realizing it was just one of his peons, a man in a black and yellow security uniform.

“What do you want, princess?” Jack said, slipping into annoyed nonchalance as he continued toward the medical wing.

The security official trailed behind him. “Sir, there’s been a breach in the hospital’s safety. A disturbed patient has gone rogue.”

Jack scoffed. “Your concern is cute, but I really do need to be going.”

He didn’t add that the thought of this supposed security threat being in proximity of Rhys was causing a nauseating anxiety to settle in his throat.

“Sir, I really don’t recommend—“

Jack groaned, spinning on his heel and sliding out his gun in a single fluid motion. He clicked the safety off and loaded a bullet into the chamber, the weapon aimed at where the man’s receded hairline should have sat. A spike of satisfaction thrummed through him at the fear twisting the other man’s features, his blue eyes widening and impossibly thin lips parting in shock to reveal the glint of a tongue piercing that definitely wasn’t up to code.

“You really wanna tell me where I can and can’t go on my own fucking space station?” Jack said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“N-no, of course not sir!” the man stammered.

Jack’s mouth quirked into his signature self-satisfied grin. “Good. Now get out of here before I rip out your stupid tongue piercing with my bare hands.”

The man blanched, scurrying back to his original post before Jack could make good on his threat (he had no qualms in doing so, considering the oversized stud really was hideous).

As the satisfaction from the man’s terrified escape dwindled, Jack reholstered his gun and cracked his knuckles. Time to get back to business. The guard had said something about some psycho running through the ward, and Jack figured he might as well do his staff a favor and just pop the weirdo. It would take way less time than catching the perp, and Jack’s trigger finger was still itching.

He didn’t bother to spare a glance at the secretary as he entered, heading straight towards where he remembered Rhys’ room to be and mentally daring someone to try to stop him. Nobody did, but as he rounded the next corner, something painfully solid slammed into him and knocked the breath out of his lungs. No, not something; some _one_.

“Rhys?” Jack asked, furrowing his brows as he rested his right hand on Rhys’ forearm.

Rhys was quick to shrug him off, features transforming from fear to anger. “Let me go!”

Jack frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting, cupcake?”

“Don’t call me that,” Rhys said through gritted teeth. “Now let me _go_!”

He shoved Jack back with his flesh hand, using the same force to propel himself back up to stand in a stance that didn’t necessitate Jack’s bodily support. He began his trek towards escape once again, remaining determined despite the way his legs felt like jello.

“Rhysie, wait—“

Rhys shook his head, both in rejection of Jack’s request and in an attempt to shake away the vertigo causing his vision to spin. Jack frowned at the retreat, especially as his ears were met with the sound of untrained, clamoring footsteps. He saw a gang of nurses trying not to run or look desperate in their pursuit of Rhys, needles no doubt filled with sedatives poised and ready in their hands.

Jack sighed, turning to the syringe-wielding woman nearest to him. “Give me that.”

She hesitated for a moment before complying, seeming to half suspect Jack to inject her with her own tool.

“Let me try to talk to him,” Jack said, as if he needed to explain his actions or, even worse, ask permission to enact them.

The woman nodded, probably just thankful she hadn’t managed to die in what shouldn’t have been an altercation in the first place.

“Rhys!” Jack called again, easily catching up to his boyfriend’s weak, hobbling body.

Rhys flinched, pressing against the wall he was half leaning against for momentum and proceeding to trip over his own two feet. He caught himself on his knees, single hand braced against the ground.

Jack knelt next to Rhys, keeping a slight distance but making it clear that Rhys had approximately zero chance of escaping him.

“Don’t make me use this,” he said, swallowing at the way Rhys nervously eyed the needle. “I just want to talk.”

“About what?” Rhys huffed, refusing to meet Jack’s eyes.

“About you,” Jack said, keeping his voice gentle and restrained. “About what happened.”

Rhys scoffed. “Like you don’t know. What is this, some sort of psychoanalysis?”

Rhys’ hand began to shake, and he stilled it between his knees as he leaned back to sit on his heels.

“So what?” Rhys said when Jack didn’t fill the conversational void. “You’re just gonna wipe me again? Huh?” He nodded his chin towards the syringe. “Aren’t you fucking tired yet?”

“Wipe you? Rhysie, you’re out of there. You’re safe now.”

There was something dark in Rhys’ eyes, and the sudden movement of his head existed in the imperceptible threshold between a symbolic refusal and an involuntary, nervous twitch.

“I promise nobody’s going to hurt you.” Jack honestly had no idea what to do other than continue to reassure Rhys of his safety, but it didn’t seem to be working.

Rhys sighed, the sound so defeated that it felt like a deadweight dragging down Jack’s heart. He slid onto his butt, scooting back against the wall and folding his long legs against his chest.

“I’m real, kitten,” Jack said, remembering Rhys’ previous accusation.

Rhys shook his head before letting it drop onto his knees.

“Touch me.”

Rhys glanced back up, the randomness of the command grabbing his attention. “What?”

“Touch me,” Jack repeated, scooting closer. “Feel that I’m real.”

Rhys scoffed, interest already fading. “You already tried that one, Jack. Not gonna work again.”

Jack sighed at the dismissal of what he’d thought to be a genius plan. He set the needle onto the floor, pushing it to roll across the tiles. It wasn’t like Rhys could run from him like this anyways.

Just as he’d hoped, Rhys’ shoulders relaxed a bit at the reduction of the threat. He was careful as he slowly wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, hoping the tactility could snap Rhys out of whatever delusion he was trapped in. Rhys stiffened and pulled back, but Jack didn’t relent. He could hear Rhys starting to hyperventilate, and he rubbed his exposed back in an attempt to calm him. He needed this to work.

Rhys couldn’t tell if he was crying, screaming, or just sitting motionless as he felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to inhale through his nose, the small amount of oxygen he managed to take in tinted with the scent of evergreen.

Evergreen.

Rhys froze, eyes snapping open. He pulled back again, not to run away, but to stare at Jack.

Jack, who, for all his money, insisted on wearing evergreen cologne from the discount drug store. Jack, who was surrounded by a prickly, natural smell that felt foreign to his unaccustomed nose.

He leaned back in towards Jack’s chest, inhaling deeply. There it was again, accompanied by an even subtler musk that a subconscious part of him recognized as Jack. How hadn’t he noticed it before? All those days and nights he’d spent with not-Jack, and he’d never once smelled...anything, really (other than ramen).

He finally met Jack’s eyes, which were frozen on his face. “Jack?” His voice wavered, tears bubbling.

Jack smiled. “It’s me, babe.”

Rhys attempted to return the grin, but the movement of his facial muscles just caused the tears to spill onto his cheeks. “God, I missed you.”

Jack pressed a kiss to Rhys’ forehead. “I missed you too. Scared the shit out of me.”

“How long was I gone?” Rhys asked, the question suddenly dawning on him.

Jack bit his lip. “Three months. I’m sorry, babe, we were looking for you the whole time.”

Rhys nodded, trying to process. “Is everyone else okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I mean, except for those weird aliens. God, those assholes were ugly. Had so much fun killin ‘em.”

Rhys chuckled weakly, although his stomach churned at the mere thought of his captors. “They-they messed with my head,” Rhys said.

Jack ran a hand through Rhys’ hair, not even caring about its rough, unwashed quality. “We’ll fix this, don’t worry.”

“Trying not to,” Rhys said. “Ugh, I need to shower.”

“What you need is to rest,” Jack replied, holding out a hand to help Rhys to his feet.

Rhys accepted, allowing himself to be lifted and then leaning on Jack for support. He didn’t release Jack’s hand even after he was resituated in his cot.

“Can you stay?” he asked quietly, cheeks flushing as he realized how clingy he sounded. “I just- I don’t want to forget again.”

Jack just nodded, dragging a chair to Rhys’ bedside and keeping their hands interlocked. “You won’t. And I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

He kissed Rhys’ knuckles before resting his hand back onto the sheets. “Glad to have you back.”

Rhys nodded, slowly giving in to the unconsciousness tugging at him.

Jack didn’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are the only reason i don’t give up on these fics tbh, so i really do appreciate each one.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> tumblr: [dragonbagel](http://dragonbagel.tumblr.com)


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